Instruction Meeting

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Instruction Meeting

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This outlines a meeting librarians had at Idaho State. We talked about a library instructor's responsibilities. The presentation does not capture the good in-person discussion we had, so I wanted to expand on a few things. One group identified a library instructor's responsibilities in the following terms:

Instill in the student a spirit of collaborative independence:
- Independent learner/researcher
- Know tools to ask more intelligent questions
- Comfortable in the Library
- Collaborate with other researchers, including other libraries

Students ought to become somewhat independent, and when they cannot answer or find what they need, then they should be able to articulate what they need in an intelligent way. Ideally, we want students to become young scholars and work closely as colleagues with professors, librarians, and other researchers. Library instructors can play a role in accomplishing this lofty goal.

Here's an expanded version on the bit that talks about working with the full-time faculty: "Add value by collaborating with the instructor. Work with them. You are a guest speaker in their class. What does the instructor want you to get out of your library instruction session?" Communication needs to take place in order for librarian to succeed in the classroom where they are the guest speaker for just one or two days out of the whole semester.

Recommendation for Article on Library Scavenger Hunts

Since I am working with our First Year Seminar program to develop a library scavenger hunt, I decided to do a little research to see what has been written on the subject. ACRL's information literacy and instruction listserv has archived many of the responses from librarians around the country, but the archive is very unwieldy. When I accessed it I could only search from month to month. The search box would not allow me to search the whole archive. Who knows, perhaps they don't have a server that could accommodate many extensive searchers?

Academic Search Complete yielded a few results, but the most promising article was not available in full text. So I interlibrary loaned it--one of the first times I've used this service since working at ISU. Cheryl McCain wrote a well-balanced article for College & Undergraduate Libraries titled "Scavenger Hunt Assignments in Academic Libraries: Viewpoints versus Reality" (14.1: 2007, 19-32). Many librarians complain about library scavenger hunts, but they do not back up their complaints with any research.

Nearly every librarian knows that a scavenger hunt can be poorly developed; however, McCain's article cites one study that showed how a scavenger hunt actually taught more to students than a library tour. Groups and basic instruction helps in the assignment also increased the scavenger hunt's success. Not much as been written about scavenger hunts in the way of an actual research study, so this could be a great opportunity for an enterprising librarian to conduct such a study. Students and faculty often learn from the scavenger hunt and in the process become more comfortable and familiar with the building and its physical and virtual resources, which or worthy objectives in my book.